Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 22, 2024 — Year B
Readings: Wis 2:12, 17-20 / Ps 54 / Jas 3:16-4:3 / Mk 9:30-37
by Rev. Mr. Mark De La Hunt, Permanent Deacon

If you want to see a total mental meltdown, tell a toddler, “No.”  YouTube is full of entertaining toddler tantrums. Where do they learn that behavior? Parents do not train them to do that. Truth is, we are all born that way. King David, in Psalm 51, wrote, “I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” (Ps 51:5) You could say he is speaking of original sin. And no, I know toddlers cannot sin, for they are not at the age of reason. This is just an analogy. However, for those who are not baptized and not raised to know and love God and neighbor, the toddler tantrum syndrome continues into adulthood.

In the first reading, you see what I am talking about. “The wicked say: Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings.” (Wis 2:12) Adults do not like being told “no” any more than a toddler does. How many have left the Catholic Church because she binds and loosens in accordance with Jesus’ commands and with His authority? Many have left the Church because she says no to any marriage that is not between one man and one woman. Many others have left because of the Church saying no to divorce, to contraception and abortion, or even to capital punishment. To those people, the Catholic Church and her faithful children are “obnoxious.”

Just like those people in the first reading, those who view the Church as obnoxious, want to put us to the test. The LA Dodgers organization and Paris Olympic committee put us to the test, using cross-dressing men to belittle our consecrated religious sisters, the apostles, and Jesus, the Son of God, who died that they may be saved and that the poor may be given the good news. How can you not love Jesus?!

Today’s psalm shows us how to respond, “…haughty men have risen up against [us]…they set not God before their eyes. Behold, God is my helper…Freely will I offer You sacrifice; I will praise your name, O Lord, for its goodness.” (Ps 54:3,6) This is the Mass! We keep going to Mass to offer up the perfect sacrifice in a sacrament of thanksgiving, lifting our voices in praise by singing with the choir. The Mass inoculates us against the madness outside these walls.  It heals our minds and hearts and helps us reset, emptying ourselves of resentment and anger towards “those who test us,” so that our Lord can fill us with His compassion and love.

In the second reading, the apostle James describes people behaving badly and helps us understand why. He writes, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice.” (Jas 3:16) He asks: “Where do wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?” (Jas 4:1) Then he tells them what they do not want to hear. “You ask [God] for [things] but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (Jas 4:3) No doubt, James’s words are obnoxious to many, maybe even to us in our low moments.

This brings us to the gospel, where Jesus, as always, shows us the way out of our mess. He coyly asks a question that He already knows the answer to. “What were you arguing about on the way?” (Mk 9:33) The apostles remain silent, and it is not hard to imagine them staring at their feet, too embarrassed to tell the Lord that they had been talking about who was the greatest.  Their egos are an example of one of the passions James said are at war inside our hearts and minds.

This is something to stop and ponder! If we, who like the Twelve, walk with Jesus in our life, still fall to our passions on occasion, then surely those who do not walk with Jesus are absolutely enslaved by theirs. If you cannot say no to your passions, then you are bound and must obey a cruel master.

Jesus sits down (the typical posture of a teacher back then), calls the Twelve to Him, and says to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” (Mk 9:35 / Healy 185) To drive home the point, He puts His arms around a child.

The meaning of this action is better understood if we understand the original language and historical context. In Aramaic and Greek, the word for child can also mean servant. Children back then were “nonpersons who had no legal rights.” (Healy 186) Jesus was doing more than showing affection for the child. Dr. Mary Healy, a leading Catholic biblical scholar said, “He was teaching His disciples to have a whole new esteem for and responsibility toward those who seem the most helpless and inconsequential.” (Healy 186)

Regarding this lowly child, Jesus says, “Whoever receives one child such as this in My name, receives Me.” (Mk 9:37) Mary Healy opens up the astounding meaning of Jesus’ words. She wrote, “To receive a little one is to accept, lovingly serve, and care for those who most need it and cannot repay it. To receive “in Jesus’ name” is to welcome such a person for the sake of Jesus…This implies that Jesus identifies with those who are most insignificant in the eyes of the world – so much so that He Himself is mysteriously present wherever they are welcomed.”  (Healy 186) Our active love for those in need, in response to Jesus’ grace, neutralizes those destructive passions James warns us about, both our personal passions and the passions that are out of control in some of those we serve.

So how do we engage those who see us as obnoxious, because we love and follow Jesus? Here are three steps that flow from today’s readings. And they are in proper order.

• Displace your own passions with Jesus’ grace, by going to Him in Confession and the Eucharist regularly.

• At peace in Jesus’ grace, “accept, lovingly serve, and care for those who most need it and cannot repay it.” This begins at home with our spouse and children. If you think, “Wait a minute, my spouse can repay me.” True, but not when they are holding a grudge, or are overwhelmed by emotion, or are very sick.

• Regular Confession, Eucharist, and care for our families cycles up Jesus’ grace within us, which enables us to then care for those outside the walls of our church and homes.

How do these three steps bring those who see us as obnoxious into the family of God?  Those three steps, brothers and sisters, are how the Catholic Church flourished under the persecution of pagan Rome and eventually displaced paganism with Christianity. Those pagans thought Christians were obnoxious because their very way of living made pagans feel guilty. Nevertheless, they were in time brought into the Church family by the Good News of the Gospel.

The good news is love, and love conquerors all, even death. This is the “wisdom from above” that James spoke of. He said this wisdom is “first of all pure.” (Jas 3:17).” What is pure and from above? Love is pure and from above; thus, Matthew wrote, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God,” who is above. (Mt 5: 8)

Here is a closing analogy to sum this up. When, in purity of heart, a parent gives a toddler what it is often crying for, their loving attention, they fill its emotional fuel tank, and the toddler becomes peaceful (Dr. Campbell). So too, when we lovingly care for those in society who are most in need, it is seen by those testing us with toddler-like tantrums. And they are attracted to this pure love, for in it, they see what they truly seek in their fruitless, angry, and exhausting pursuit of their passions. They see the peaceful presence of Jesus, who is Love.

Remember these things when Father gives us the final blessing, and I tell you to, “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” Amen.

CITATIONS

1. Ross Campbell. How to Really Love Your Child. David C Cook, April 1, 2015.
2. Mary Healy STD. Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, The Gospel of Mark. Baker Academic 2008.